The Rogue
by callymorph
Summary: While trying to cheat off a classmate's PSAT exam, Marco notices something odd on the kid's screen. Fitey777's chat room. Joe Bob Fenestre. Visser Three's brother, presumed dead. Fenestre tells them the Yeerks are expanding outside California, to New York, and asks for the Animorphs' help to stop them. (A sequel to book 16, set in the modern day. Canon style, Marco's POV.)
1. Chapter 1

(**Author's note: **This will eventually be a full-length book, set in canon around book 35 or so, except that it assumes the series takes place in the modern day. [What can I say? I keep wondering what the series would be like if it took place outside the '90s.] It's a sequel to book #16, from Marco's POV. Rated T, because I always found Scholastic's censorship a little silly for how middle schoolers realy talk. ((Thought speak indicated like this.))

I do not own any of the characters or intellectual property associated with _Animorphs_ and thank KAA for being so cool about fandom in general.)

My name is Marco.

The Marco. Marco the Mighty. Marco, no last name necessary. Marco Jordan. Marco Trump. Marco Bush. Marco Obama.

About that. I can't tell you my real last name. Or where I live. Or who my friends are. Even where I like to hang out. None of us can. It's too dangerous.

See, we're not exactly normal kids. Or rather, we are normal. We're as normal as any kids who have to fight Yeerks in hand-to-hand combat on a daily basis and live without being mauled or tortured or killed. Or worse.

Yeerks aren't from around here. They're aliens. Slugs. Parasites. Like fleas or tapeworms or lice, but scarier. Yeerks don't make you itch or mess with your digestion or gross out girls. They take over your entire body. Your brain. Your free will. Your ability to do anything but watch, helpless, as they completely control you. Everything you say. Everything you do. Forever.

A person with a Yeerk in their head is called a Controller. Anyone can be a Controller. My best friend's Jake's brother, Tom, is one. So is my mother. Maybe your family is, too. Maybe you are.

The Yeerks have been taking over Earth for the past year or so, slowly and secretly, which says a lot when the invasion leader is someone like Visser Three. Visser Three is the boss from hell, a raving megalomaniac with an attitude and a serious body count. Plus the ability to transform into whatever horror-movie nightmare alien creature he's ever encountered, and then kill you with it. This isn't Star Trek. It isn't even David Cronenberg. It's much, much worse.

The major enemies of the Yeerks are the Andalites, another alien species millions of light-years away from Earth. They're like blue centaurs with eye stalks, no mouths and big scary tails. Visser Three's host is an Andalite. So is our buddy Ax. I'll get to him later. You'd think the Andalites would be humanity's only hope, but so far they've mostly blown us off.

Oh, right. Us. There are five of us. Five kids. Well, five kids and an Andalite _aristh_. A cadet. An intern. Beyond underdogs. But we have something else going for us.

One night, while cutting through an old construction site to impress Jake's crush Cassie, we found a dying Andalite prince named Elfangor. Visser Three found him too, and he... well, you can imagine what he did. But before Elfangor died, he gave us a power. A power all Andalite warriors have. The power to morph. To acquire the DNA of any animal species we touch, and to turn into them.

Insane, right? Messed up. PTSD city. Too much for one man to deal with. Even someone as strong and cute and humble as me.

But I haven't told you the worst part. Every week, while fighting the Yeerks, I have to face something even more horrifying.

PSAT prep.

"The pigeon is a resourceful bird. Though originally domestic creatures, huge populations of feral pigeons have grown in several major cities, such as New York and London. They have learned to scavenge in parks and on sidewalks for most of their food..."

I zoned out. When you've been a bird yourself, when you've had wings and feathers and a beak, when you've zoomed up pillars of hot air - our friend Tobias calls them thermals - and flown, really _flown_ from city to city, when you've dive-bombed aliens and infiltrated their lairs and clawed out their eyes... well, it's hard to focus on PSAT bird passages.

We were in the computer lab, taking these practice tests online. One section on math, one section on grammar, one section on reading, all designed for kids several grades above us. Closed-book. No phones. No notes. No outside help allowed. Not that we had a real teacher checking. The school brought in some outside instructor named Mr. Andrew, who couldn't have been out of college. Mr. Andrew didn't like me. Probably because he caught me cheating off this kid Jesse's screen once. OK, more than once. Hey, you try sneaking math notes into the Yeerk pool.

We had a mission the other night. A bad one. Kind of a failure, really. Tobias was out hunting - we'll get to that later - and found a new entrance to the Yeerk pool. The Yeerk pool is a massive underground facility beneath our town where the Yeerks go every three days to feed. We've only gone down there a couple times. A couple times is a couple times too many.

The pool is always insanely crowded, like Yeerk Grand Central. There are aliens, like Hork-Bajir - tall, raptor-like aliens, normally a gentle, simple species but walking killing machines under Yeerk control - and Taxxons, cannibalistic centipede creatures whose hunger never goes away. And there are humans. There are the voluntary Controllers: people who choose to let Yeerks into their head because they're lonely or apathetic or whatever. While their Yeerks feed in the pool, they sit on couches and watch Breaking Bad and eat pizza and joke with each other. Wanna know what I think about that? It's disgusting. Then there are the involuntary ones. People who are forced to become Controllers. They don't get to watch TV. They get thrown into cages. Screaming. Pleading. Reduced to tears. I don't know if I believe in hell, but whatever it is, it can't be worse than the Yeerk pool.

We knew one entrance to the Pool was in the mall, in a dressing room at the Gap. This one was at the mall too, but behind it, in some dingy shipping area. A semi-enclosed warehouse. You know the kind. Normally the Yeerks have airtight security systems around pool entrances, but Tobias didn't know if they'd installed one here yet. So we were spying as cockroaches. Gross, right? Nightmares for miles. But safe. Nobody cares about a roach in a warehouse. Nobody, that is, except the Yeerks. Because those security systems? They're designed to kill any unauthorized lifeforms. To the Yeerks, a roach might not just be a roach. It could be an Andalite bandit - they think we're Andalites - in morph.

A rent-a-cop spotted one of us by a stray box. A stupid mistake. Stupider still because he was a Controller. The Yeerks know about our cockroach morphs. He closed the metal shutters leading into the warehouse. Dead end. No place to change morphs. No way to escape. He flooded the room with bug poison, then sent another cop to spray around the perimeter and five Hork-Bajir from the pool to finish the job. They say roaches can survive anything, but when you're breathing poison, barely dodging huge, spiked alien feet, that begins to seem like bull. One of them pulled my leg off. I was lucky. Our friend Rachel got stomped. Totally stomped. Guts everywhere. But she was lucky too.

Because she should have died. All of us should have died, really. We would have, too, except that in the carnage, one of the Hork-Bajir slammed into a motion sensor. A loud motion sensor. The kind that attracts outside attention. So they ran. And so did we, dragging Rachel's torn body behind us. And that's what saved my life that day. A motion alarm. A dumb fluke.

It made it hard to think about pigeons.

I couldn't focus, so I looked around the classroom. Everyone was either taking their tests or goofing off on Facebook. No one I knew. We didn't have our normal class assignments for PSAT prep, in case friends tried to cheat. The school randomly assigned us to groups, and the only familiar face was Brown Nose. Jesse, that is, His full name is Jesse Brown, but Jake and I always call him Brown Nose because he always sucks up to teachers. It's mean, I guess, but nobody we know really talks much with him. He's in third grade, see. He's probably a genius or something, but more importantly, his parents have the clout with the school system to get him moved up a couple grades. He's in Rachel's pre-algebra class. Jake's world history class. I don't have any classes with him because I don't take school as seriously as they do, but everyone has to take the PSAT, so here he was, probably scoring dozens of percentiles above me or anyone in the room. Like he even needed PSAT prep. He could apply to Harvard right now and get in easy.

I guess I was kind of jealous of Jesse. Nothing bad had ever happened to him. Nothing bad would ever happen to him, probably. Not like my life. Not now, not even before.

The computer beeped. Oh, right. The test was timed. "What is the main idea of this passage?"

What passage? Pigeons. Food. Something about sidewalks. All I could remember were details. Nothing broad. No main idea. Focus, Marco, I muttered, but my brain was mush. Normally I'd Google the questions - you can do that most of the time - but the test software did something to lock up the screen. My notes were in my backpack across the room - Mr. Andrew took all our bags - and both the computers next to me were empty. They kind of sat me by myself on purpose. See? I told you Mr. Andrew doesn't like me.

Suddenly, a plan emerged. It was stupid. Jake would kill me if he found out. We're not supposed to draw attention to ourselves. But if there's one thing about being an Animorph, it's drawing attention to yourself. And getting accustomed to stupid plans.

I raised my hand. "Mr. Andrew?"

"Yes, Marco."

"Something's wrong with my computer. It's some kind of virus! It's redirecting me to porn! There's porn everywhere! I'm being corrupted as I speak!"

Mr. Andrew did not look impressed. "Just move to another computer, Marco."

"Yes, sir! God forbid I allow smut in a fine learning institution like this." The trick to dealing with teachers is to lay it on thick. They secretly like that. Brightens up their day.

I sidled up to an empty seat next to Jesse's screen, and I could have sworn I saw him rolling his eyes. Not my problem. I pulled up the practice test on my new computer - thankfully the timer hadn't stopped - clicked the mouse a few times for show, waited a minute until I was sure Jesse'd forgotten I was there, then snuck a peek at his screen. And glared. He wasn't taking the test at all! He was in some chat room. The little twerp. I was just about to rat him out to Mr. Andrew when my heart stopped.

See, I didn't recognize most of the screen names in the chat. Why should I? But I did notice one name right away. It would have been impossible not to.

Fitey777. Also known as Joe Bob Fenestre. The founder of Web Access America, the biggest Internet service provider there is. Formerly the second-richest man in the world. Presumed dead, in a freak house fire. Yet chatting online with Brown Nose.

Joe Bob Fenestre, the founder of the only anti-Yeerk website in existence. A Controller. Also, a twin. Esplin 9466 the lesser, twin of Esplin 9466 the prime.

Visser Three.

The tab suddenly closed. "Are you trying to cheat off me again, Marco?"

"What? No." I forced a laugh. "You know me! I'm a paragon of academic integrity! A model student, through and through! Also modest," I added, praying he didn't suspect anything more.

"I'm telling the teacher." Typical Brown Nose. This was bad. I looked around the room again to see if maybe I could get out of this. The period wasn't over yet, but we had the computer lab in shifts, and another group was starting to file in early. Jake's group! I shut the screen off quick and bolted over, nearly knocking him into the door.

"What the hell, Marco?"

"We have problems."

Jake looked annoyed. "What problems?"

"Brown Nose problems. You know what this kid was doing?" Jake blanched suddenly. "This kid was in Joe B-"

"Marco, look behind you." I turned. Mr. Andrew was standing by the door. He was not happy.

"Can I see you outside the classroom for a minute, Marco?" This wasn't bad anymore. This was very bad.

"Backup. Now. Just be ready," I whispered, then followed Mr. Andrew into the hallway. No one was around. I gulped, then gambled that Mr. Andrew didn't have our class schedules memorized.

"You know, Mr. Andrew, I have a really big math test next period. Half our grades! On - on systems of inequalities! Advanced stuff, man. Wouldn't want to be late for that!"

"Next period is lunch." So much for gambling. "Marco, I know you were looking at Jesse's screen. I know what you saw."

My veins were ice. "Why, you must be mistaken! That would violate the Honor Code! I would never do such a thing." Mr. Andrew's face was unchanged. "Right?" He knew what I saw, which was too much. Any minute now, he would get Chapman, our vice principal and a high-ranking Controller, and stick a Yeerk inside me. A Yeerk who would soon know all our team's secrets. I glanced nervously down the hall. No Jake. No windows, either, so no Tobias. I had singlehandedly lost the war. During a PSAT exam.

"This is the fourth time you have cheated off Jesse's screen all semester."

All the energy left me. "Fourth? No way! It was only this once. OK, twice. I mean, Mr. Andrew. Mr. Andrew, man. You know what pigeons eat? You know what pigeons eat?" No answer. "No? See! It's rigged! You can't win! The only way to pass is to cheat!" I was babbling. But you try sounding smart after imagining your own doom. "Maybe it was three times?"

And that's how I got detention all week. Not that I cared, really. When your main extracurricular activity is fighting the Yeerks, a little detention doesn't register anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

You know how I'm always right? I am always right. Well, almost always right. Maybe wrong once in a lifetime. But I was right about this, at least: Jake would kill me when he found out.

"You let a teacher, a teacher we know nothing about, catch you looking at Yeerk chat rooms during class?"

"It wasn't like that! It's - well, it's because I cheated off Jesse once."

Jake gave me a look. So did the others.

"OK, more than once. What?" I protested. "You try studying critical reading for more than two minutes."

"I get it," said Cassie. Trying to be soothing, I knew, but she just sounded condescending. "School is stressful for you. It's fine." She patted me on the shoulder.

"It's not fine," Jake said - commanded, really. It's funny when he gets into Big Leader Mode. He's still got a baby face. It's like watching a toddler wear a suit. Although it'd be more funny if he didn't look ready to morph tiger and kick my ass. "Just because we're Animorphs doesn't mean we have free rein to get into trouble at school. Especially not with Controllers involved."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm Goofus and you're Gallant. The point is, he didn't suspect anything. Anything except cheating, I mean. I was the only guy in detention. And Chapman was leading it. I'd be dead if he knew."

((What is a Goofus?))

We'd met, as usual, in Cassie's barn. Cassie is kind of a tree-hugger type. Loves animals more than some people. Loves bird poop more than clean clothes. Her mother works at The Gardens, this amusement park near town with a wildlife preserve attached. I used to go there for the roller-coasters. Now I go there to acquire new morphs. I liked the roller-coasters better.

Her parents also help run the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic, which is like a private animal hospital. All hours of the day, the barn out back has cages full of injured geese and panting foxes and various forms of roadkill. And us.

"The point is," Jake continued, "Brown Nose is chatting about Yeerks. Why?"

"That's kind of what I was hoping you would answer."

"So we nab the kid," Rachel, of course. Rachel is like Xena from the old TV show, or maybe like Daenerys from _Game of Thrones_. Very blonde. Very pretty. And very likely to slit your throat if you look at her wrong. "He's got to be a Controller, right? But he's just a kid. He can't hurt us. Lock him up in the barn, wait three days, find out what his deal is, kick Yeerk ass, the end."

"We kidnap a first-grader?" Cassie asked dubiously. Cassie's kind of our moral compass. Even when we already know our way.

"Third-grader," Jake said.

"Who CARES? What's our alternative? Let this kid keep going on Yeerk Chatroulette with Visser Three's brother? With Gump?" Cassie's face fell. Gump was another kid from the chat room. His father was a Controller, and he didn't know who to talk to. Cassie had tracked Gump down and told him not to trust his dad. It wasn't a nice memory. But then, what memories are nice anymore?

"Rachel goes on Chatroulette? No way! I go on Chatroulette. Maybe we've met before." I leered. "I seem to remember this one blonde chick I exchanged pics with. Well-dressed. Tall. Hot, too."

"Is that how you meet girls, Marco?" Rachel teases me a lot. She and Tobias are a couple or whatever, but secretly she wants me.

((I know this kid,)) Tobias interrupted, in thought-speak - speech you can hear inside your head, but not out loud. It's the way we communicate in morph. Tobias, right now, was a red-tailed hawk. He's a red-tailed hawk most of the time. See, you can only be in morph for two hours at a time. Go above, and... well, you learn to eat with a beak. Tobias flew down from the rafter and perched on Rachel's shoulder. She nuzzled his wing, and I made a big show of retching. ((I fly by his parents' place sometimes. They're loaded. They've got security everywhere.))

((Human security,)) said Ax, our resident Andalite. Scoffed, more like. Andalites don't think much of human technology.

((Rich human security, Ax-man. Alarms. Motion detectors. More locks than a hardware store. Private guards. Plus the mayor, the council and half the police on speed dial. They'll raise hell if their son goes missing for three days.))

((Do rich humans have a special connection to hell?)) Tobias and I shared a look. A look that said "hey, how about you be the one to explain human class divisions to the alien."

"We also don't know if his parents are Controllers," Jake said. "It might not just be human security we'd be dealing with."

"Hold up," I said. "Brown-nose used a school computer. On the school network. School networks track everything! Remember the time we edited the school Wikipedia page to call Mr. Tidwell an ex-convict, and they gave us detention for a week?"

Jake sighed. "I'm pretty sure that was just you, Marco."

"Whatever. The point is, we don't need to kidnap him! Just get into the network, check the logs, and see what he's up to."

((Can't be done,)) Tobias said. ((Jake told me what had happened during lunch period, so I helped Erek sneak in after last bell.)) Erek's another friend of ours. He's a Chee. An android that looks like a puppy, unless he's projecting a hologram of a middle-school dude. Did I mention my life is weird? ((Turns out the machine he used was hacked. The school network can't monitor it. Or any network. Completely untraceable.))

"Well, that's convenient. Remind me which computer to sit at next time."

"So what do we do, then?" Rachel said. "Break into Jesse's house and spy on him?"

"Remember Joe Bob's house?" I protested. "Remember how well that break-in went?" Rachel remembered. She and Ax were captured during the mission. See, Fenestre's security was even better than the Browns'. Has to be, when you're keeping out Visser Three. Or Animorphs.

"I remember," Rachel snipped. "So let's go elephant and rhino, then. Bust our way into the mansion. Maybe we can burn it down too." This weird look came over Jake's face just then. Maybe I imagined it. I've always suspected Jake knew more about the Fenestre fire than he let on.

"We are not smashing up Jesse's house," Jake said. "Too much risk. Zero reward. We don't even know if he's a Controller yet."

"We could morph bugs again and look at his computer screen in class next week." Even as I said it, I realized how stupid an idea it was. "I'm guessing they don't let Hork-Bajir be test proctors."

((I could look through the window,)) Tobias offered.

((We may not have one of your weeks,)) Ax said. I sighed. He always did this.

"They're everyone's weeks, Ax. Just like they're everyone's minutes, and everyone's -"

((For the Yeerks to actively monitor such a primitive communications forum would require a situation that is urgent.)) He had a point. Fenestre's site wasn't exactly cutting-edge. More like Geocities. The kind of place gun nuts and Illuminati conspiracists hang out. Anyone stumbling across it would write it off - anyone, that is, who didn't know. ((We may need to take immediate action.))

"Action. Right. HOW?" I stood up. "Our options are go in as bugs and get poisoned, go in as birds and get captured, go in as rhinos and play _Burnout Revenge_ with his house, or spy off his screen. Which sounds best to you?"

"I know," Cassie said. She had kept quiet until now, watching one of the raccoon cages. "We listened in on the chat before. Maybe we could drop by again. He has a... a chat name, right?"

"Cassie, Cassie, Cassie." Cassie is techno-illiterate. She doesn't have IM, she hates texting, and it took her until three months ago just to get her own smartphone. I guess there isn't an app for changing a raccoon's water dish. "It's called a username. Or a screen name."

((Or a handle,)) Tobias said.

((You humans have a strange language.))

"I'm just saying," Cassie said, "if he has a screen name they might know him. They might know more about him. Or about what's going on. We can listen in. Maybe even ask questions."

"I like it," Jake said, slowly.

"You always like her ideas," I whined. Jake ignored me. "Can't they just track us down? We can't exactly morph a firewall."

"Didn't you get Ax to rig your computer to be untraceable?"

"My old computer. Dad shoved it in the closet last month before Nora came over." Nora is my math teacher. She's also my dad's new girlfriend. As if I didn't have enough problems, now I have to hide in my room when she's over pretending they're just talking about variables. "Maybe he sold it, I don't know."

((It would be trivial to encode his software again,)) Ax said. ((This device is virtually interchangeable with the last one I encountered.))

"No way! That's a Mac, Ax-man. The latest model. Top of the line. Isn't even out yet. My dad pulled some strings." But he was right. Compared to Andalite engineers, Steve Jobs was like a caveman putting rocks together.

Jake cocked his head. "Your dad pulled strings? At Apple?"

"OK, maybe I lied a bit."

((Does this device incorporate strings?))

"It might be better this way, anyway," Cassie said. "Even if Jesse's a Controller, his host is still a third-grade kid. He knows he has more privacy at home than at school. No teachers to keep watch. No kids cheating off his screen."

"Let's do it," Rachel said. It's kind of her catchphrase. "Let's chat up some Yeerks."

"Chat up some Yeerks," Jake agreed. "Ax, you fix Marco's computer. Everyone else, meet at his place tomorrow after school."

"Can't," I interrupted. "Detention."

"After detention, then. And Marco?" I nodded. "Bring your PSAT book."

"Great. Multiple-choice questions and Yeerks. Join the Animorphs, kids! Every day's a party."


	3. Chapter 3

"You picked the screen name WorldWarY?"

We were crammed in my room around my laptop, now Yeerkproof thanks to Ax. It was the five of us, and Ax in his human morph, an amalgam of Jake, Rachel, Cassie and I. Girls think he's cute in a pretty-boy way, so obviously he takes after me.

My dad wasn't home. Out with Nora, probably. I could tell because the hallway reeked of cologne. Ax had a coughing fit.

It was weird. My dad never wears cologne. Me, I'm all about the Drakkar Noir. But my dad? Forget it. He never used to date, either. It's not like he couldn't - I know it's creepy to think about your parents' league, but Dad had game. My mom was a catch. Dad could be in a relationship tomorrow if he wanted to. But he doesn't want to. Well, didn't.

See, Dad thinks my mother's dead, lost in a freak accident. But she isn't. She's a Controller. Not just any Controller, either. Visser One. The highest-ranking Visser in the Yeerk military. Visser Three's arch-enemy. And our ally, in a twisted way. But not my mother.

One day, when this war is won, I'm going to free her. Dad won't have to date ever again. And I won't have to think about my math teacher having game.

I shook my head. Jake was waiting for me to say something.

"You don't know _World War Z_?" No one answered. "Zombie apocalypse? No? How can you people fight aliens if you don't even have a zombie plan?" An idea struck me. "Do you think they could make zombie-Controllers?"

"Not the time, Marco."

"They can stick Yeerks in horses and android puppies and psychic frogs. Why not zombies? Hey, wait! You know how in _28 Days Later_ the zombies are so fast? Almost like they're coordinated?" Nobody was laughing. "Maybe I'll use my old screen name instead."

"Your old screen name is BaldwinBoyFive."

"Exactly. Huge security risk. I'd never feel secure with myself again."

"_World War Y_," Ax said. "Why-ee. It is an interesting sound."

"It's called a diphthong, Ax-man," said Tobias. "Two vowel sounds in one."

"Diphthong. Thong. Thong."

"That thong-th-thong thong thong," I muttered, praying no one heard me.

"Are we going to do this, or are we going to sit around listening to Marco babble about zombies and Sisqo?" Rachel sounded antsy. She knows she can't control herself in my bedroom.

"Don't knock the Dragon, man. Sisqo knows what it's about." I pulled up the website. "Girls in thongs."

"I rarely know what you humans discuss," Ax mumbled. The site finally loaded.

Fenestre hadn't done anything major with it. Everything was the same: Geocities layout, frames, ridiculous WordArt icons: "Facts About Yeerks," "Suspected Human Yeerks," "Types of Yeerks," "Chat About Yeerks." I clicked around. The Obamas were now apparently Controllers. So was all of One Direction. Lies, of course. Probably.

"The Kardashian race?" Ax asked. "But what would the Yeerks want with them?"

"Huh," said Rachel. "Heidi Klum's a Controller now. I never liked her."

"We've got a mission here," Jake said. "I told my parents I was studying at your place. They've been after Tom and I." I clicked on the chat link and waited.

For nothing.

The chat was empty. And stayed empty, for a good five minutes.

"Are you sure this is what you saw?" Jake asked.

"Swear to God," I said. I didn't get a great look, but there was definite activity." I tapped the mouse a bit. Habit. As if it'd help.

Rachel frowned. "So are we just going to wait here? Forever? My parents are after me too."

"I kind of thought we'd just lurk."

"Lurk?" Cassie looked skeptical.

"You know, hang, chill, not blow our cover." I'd already started typing as I said it. "I guess it couldn't hurt to send out a message or two."

_WorldWarY: hello?_

Nothing.

"Maybe there's a password," Tobias suggested.

"What, like 'freedom now, freedom forever?'"

I flinched. Rachel was referring to the password to the Hork-Bajir valley. My mom - Visser One had tried to use the free Hork-Bajir as a bargaining chip. It didn't go well for her. For me.

"I don't think that's how passwords work, Bird-boy."

"I do not believe a primitive passcode would function here," Ax agreed.

"Wait," I said. "I know how to get them to talk." Jake looked skeptical. "Just let me handle the typing, OK? None of you can lie. No offense, Jake, my man, but we all know how much studying gets done here."

"Just no _Prince of Egypt _references, OK?" I frowned, then stopped before anyone could notice.

"I've got something even better."

_WorldWarY: a/s/l? f here ;-)_

"Marco is flirting," Rachel muttered. "If the place wasn't empty before, it is now."

"I know!" Cassie said. Everyone turned. "The Venber were zombies. Kind of." The Venber were an extinct alien species we met in Alaska. The Yeerks had taken their DNA and spliced it into microchips. Programmable soldiers. Shame they melted at room temperature.

"Aha!" I crowed. "Cassie wants to play my game. But, you see, the Venber were genetically modified. They don't count. Undead? Sure. Mindless? Oh yeah. Zombies? Nope."

"I do not know of any race that could sustain a Yeerk after death," Ax said. "It may be possible with certain non-sentient species."

"If we don't get a bite in the next minute, I'm leaving." Rachel rolled her eyes. And so is Cassie. Your testosterone is rubbing off." As if on cue, there came a ping.

_JesseJesse04: Hello! You must be new. I'm from the Cali area. I'm 13._

I scoffed. "You wish."

"That's gotta be Brown Nose," said Jake. "04. 2004."

"People were born in 2004? How is that even legal?" Rachel started to type, but I grabbed the keyboard into my lap.

_WorldWarY: lol I'm 18, also cali_

_JesseJesse04: I see. You're here for the Yeerks?_

_WorldWarY: sort of, my gf said she overheard this rumor about something called the sharing?_

"Girlfriend?" Rachel laughed and high-fived Cassie.

"Girlfriend?" Jake repeated. "I thought you could lie."

"I can lie," I muttered.

"He could be gay," said Tobias. "I mean, she. The Sharing seems like they'd be cool with that."

"Join The Sharing, fight Prop 8?" I suggested. Silence. "It's a process. The lie will emerge." I continued typing.

_WorldWarY: you know, like the sharing talks about charity work but is some kind of mind control cult?_

_Chazz: Yes, the Sharing is a confirmed Yeerk front organization._

"Chazz! That's one of the guys from before."

"One of the competent ones," Jake agreed.

"Why is he still here?" asked Rachel. "He's stuck around these bozos this long, he's got to have a reason."

_WorldWarY: oh man i knew there was something off about those guys_

_DieYeerkScum: But just last week they held a huge philanthropic drive and raised $10,000 for the children's hospital!_

_JesseJesse04: No. They say they're a charity organization, but it's a scam._

_The_Terminator: Like those Heaven's Gate people. o.o_

_JesseJesse04: Worse. They know what they're doing._

"This guy doesn't talk like a third-grader," Cassie said.

"Neither does Jesse," I pointed out.

_SSE5624: i helped out with the boston marathon, i got this._

_Chazz: Oh?_

_SSE5624: yeah i hung out at one of their meetings and took pics. check out these faces, i think this guy was on a missing or wanted poster or something_

The Sharing stuff went on for another minute or two. Guess it was the big topic still. I leaned back in my chair.

"OK, so nothing we don't know already." I was tense. This whole plan was on me, after all.

"Jesse smells bad." I was just about to make a snide comment when Rachel continued, "No way a 13-year-old talks like that. Not even a genius. Also, why is he here?"

"Good question," Jake said. "No one knows who we are. Why not just ask?"

_WorldWarY: so jesse you're 13. isn't it past your bedtime_

_JesseJesse04: Rude._

_The_Terminator: valid question. why ARE you here?_

A pause.

_JesseJesse04: I was surfing the Internet and I found this site and it really creeped me out. Like I had to do something, you know?_

We looked at each other, then to Cassie. She shrugged.

"We've got another obvious Controller in here, plus the old regulars. But Jesse? Who knows? It could go either way."

"Oh man," I said. "This is bad. Not even Cassie knows his deal."

_WorldWarY: so what do i do?_

_SSE5624: anyone got surveillance footage? i could try to blow up the stills_

_DieYeerkScum: You should take it to the local newspaper. It'll be a huge scoop!_

_The_Terminator: any more leads on yeerks?_

_WorldWarY: how do i tell_

_Chazz: We all have our little theories. Mine is Congress. :)_

_SSE5624: would anybody be interested in a yeerk blog?_

_JesseJesse04: This guy Fitey has a plan he wanted me for._

"Did you feel that? Because I definitely felt that," I said.

"Press it," Jake said.

_WorldWarY: fitey?_

_JesseJesse04: The guy in charge of this place.__ Everything we know comes from him._

_Chazz: There's something going on in my neck of the woods, but Fitey hasn't told me the details._

_WorldWarY: your neck of the woods?_

_Chazz: NYC. Technically not woods._

_The_Terminator: LOL_

_WorldWarY: oh man_

_Chazz: Supposedly he was doing some research this morning, but I haven't seen him._

_JesseJesse04: He should be here soon! It's usually around lunch and dinner time that he shows up. He's got some kind of high-powered job._

"Yeah," Rachel said. "High-powered all right."

"That answers the school question," Jake said. "But I can't wait until dinner. My parents would ground me for a week! Are you sure we all have to -"

_Fitey777: Hi guys._

Greetings filled the chat, old names and new. I followed suit. If Fitey noticed the new name, he didn't say anything.

_Fitey777: I have discovered the details of the latest Yeerk plan. As you know, it centers on the New York metropolitan area. Specifically, it involves the MTA._

_WorldWarY: mta?_

_Chazz: Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The subways._

_The_Terminator: Dude I saw a movie like that once_

_Fitey777: I'll give you more details individually, but the gist is that the Yeerks plan to redirect one of the auxiliary lines into a portable Yeerk pool._

_DieYeerkScum: That's ridiculous._

_Chazz: It's perfect. How would anyone tell? The MTA is a clusterfuck already as it is. Sorry Jesse._

_JesseJesse04: It's OK! I won't tell my mom ;-)_

_WorldWarY: how can i help? i can be in nyc if you want_

_Fitey777: You're new._

I said a word Jesse wouldn't appreciate.

_WorldWarY: oh lol hi sorry. i guess i'm just overenthusiastic because i just heard, my gf told me about -_

_Fitey777: The Sharing?_

_WorldWarY: lol yes so i googled them and this was the third hit_

_Fitey777: That's odd. The last I checked, the Sharing was on the entire front page of results._

"Fuck," I muttered. "I forgot you could check that. Fuck!"

"This place is all a Yeerk trap, right?" asked Cassie. "He assumes you're a Yeerk. He's trying to trip you up. Just play dumb."

_WorldWarY: what?_

_Fitey777: Never mind. _

_WorldWarY: uhhh ok_

_Fitey777: Be right back. I've got to coordinate some details._

The chat died down when Fitey left. Any other discussion topic would be an anticlimax, I guess. I turned my chair around. "New York. Man."

"What is New York? York-uh."

"A city," Jake said.

"THE city. The Big Apple. Concrete jungle, where Controllers are made of." I laughed nervously. "Give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Herald Square, tell all the gang down at the Yeerk pool that I will soon be there!"

"Expanding the invasion," Tobias said. "Millions of new hosts."

"The best and the brightest," Jake agreed.

"So we take a little field trip. Walk up the Empire State, hit up the comic stores, blow up the Yeerk pool, get frisked, get Draconed, go home. Awesome."

"Look," Rachel said. "Normally I'd be all for this, but I can't miss a week of school. My grades are slipping. Not everyone gets to cheat off third-graders."

"Something's not right here," Cassie said. "How does Jesse fit into all this? He's just a kid. If he's for real, why is Fitey letting Jesse in on this? And if he's a Controller, what do the Yeerks want with him?"

"Comic relief?" I suggested.

"The best and the brightest," Jake repeated. "Jesse's a model student. He'll get into any prep school he wants. Any college. What better publicity could The Sharing get?"

"He was speaking out against the Sharing, though," Cassie said. "It doesn't add up."

"It's a trap," Rachel said. "Somehow it's got to be a trap. Someone is playing someone here."

"But what's our alternative?" Tobias argued. "Writing off an entire city?" The computer pinged, slightly higher-pitched this time.

"Private message," I said, clicking over. "That's weird. Why would -" I stopped. We all did.

_Fitey777: Hello. I know who you are. What you are. And what you want._


End file.
